


like a weed or a fountain

by atria



Series: Tezuka vs. Puberty [3]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 09:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atria/pseuds/atria
Summary: "That was a disgraceful game," he says when Echizen doesn't move, and is surprised at himself. It's not untrue, but he hadn't known he thought so.I'm angry, he realises, though he can't guess why.*Echizen flakes on staying with Seigaku for the Nationals, and Tezuka goes through the whole of puberty in a day.





	like a weed or a fountain

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't quite the cocky, nonverbal Tezuka or Ryoma we know, but it is the version of them I like to write best. Title from Joanna Klink's "Given", quoted at the end.

Echizen threw the game, Momo nearly threw him, and now Seigaku’s Holmes and Watson, Ron and Harry, Tom and Jerry aren't talking. 

There was a fine tremor in Echizen's spine as he slunk off the courts. He always slouches, but the bones of his shoulders looked sharp enough to poke through his shirt just then. Ryuuzaki-sensei had insisted he go up half a size for the latest jerseys, and for the first time he looked less like a child than a teenager in the large shirt, bewildered by his new shape.

Kunimitsu wishes for the days when he found Echizen hard to read. 

Ryuuzaki-sensei gives him the face that says, I'm too old to deal with this and there aren't enough adults in the room. She goes after Momo. Her look is significant.

Kunimitsu presses his eyes shut for two seconds and in that time Oishi is at his shoulder. His hair is hovering worriedly over his face and his brows are strung high in distress. 

"Echizen seems to listen to you," Oishi says.

Kunimitsu wants to point out that's because there isn't much talking involved. They play tennis, which they're actually good at. But Oishi's stubborn in his own way. 

"You know where to find him?" he says when Kunimitsu doesn't say a word, not even a grunt. He has the vague idea that the others are watching with bated breath, but he cares even less than usual, if possible. 

It's Echizen. Kunimitsu can't not go.

*

Kunimitsu tries Echizen's classroom and the library methodically, but each empty room only confirms what he already guessed. He takes the stairs to the roof two at a time. Echizen's bony back faces the door.

"That was a disgraceful game," he says when Echizen doesn't move, and is surprised at himself. It's not untrue, but he hadn't known he thought so.

I'm angry, he realises, though he can't guess why.

Echizen turns. His cap covers his eyes. "I'm sorry," he says. His voice is cowed and hoarse. His apology is textbook and for the first time he is a model of a Japanese child. He parrots Kunimitsu's words back at him, Yamato's really, about his expectations and being a pillar to his team. He all but bows.

It's as though he's talking to someone else, Kunimitsu thinks. There's violence in the tremor of his hands. He wills them still. He knows what he must say. 

"I didn't say that to hold you back. You can go to America and people will still look to you."

He says the right thing, but it's dishonest and inexact. Language is like this with Echizen in particular. There is no way to speak, not when it's something in himself that needs to be said.

Echizen looks up at him as though the clouds have cleared and pure light pours over his eyes. His eyes are wet and his expression is a kind of painful gratitude. It makes Kunimitsu sick. He didn't know Echizen was like the others in this, that he could look this way at Kunimitsu: without seeing. 

"Good," he says and turns to leave; anyway, Echizen doesn't seem to notice.

He did his job. He reeled Echizen in and then he let him go. At this point, they might even win the Nationals without him. It's only fair. It's only fair. It's only fair.

*

Momo and Echizen make up on the centre court, loudly, as is their wont. The regulars cheer. The freshmen cry. Kunimitsu's mind is still on the roof.

"You could've just said you wanted to go, ochibi," Momo complains as he lands a Jackknife. 40-15. 

That's it, Kunimitsu thinks. He resented having to say it. Echizen could have decided and they could have let him go. There was no need for the back-and-forth, the hope, the tenterhooks, the vicious moment when Echizen said he was _afraid to let Kunimitsu down_. As though he would've stopped for that, as though Kunimitsu could have held him back on purpose--

Kunimitsu decides, knows, that he was right and Echizen was wrong, though perhaps he can't be blamed. 

It's all very vindicating but doesn't make him feel any better.

On the court, Echizen tests a new shot. It's shaky, but he lets out a wordless shout when it lands. Momo sweats and fumbles the return, yells back, “Mada mada dane!” Echizen only pretends to scowl. The setting sun limns their skin, and they laugh, but it's clearly a last time.

It should be me, Kunimitsu thinks with sudden urgent want, eyes roving over the game on the old clay court. Perhaps Echizen's last there.

 

*

Kunimitsu takes the long way home. He tells his mother he doesn't have homework and helps her with dinner: chopping, carrying, clearing the sinks. 

As they set the table, mother asks him what is wrong. He doesn't say a word, but the tablecloth begins to blur.

He's shocked at himself. He hasn't wanted to cry since he was -- well, Echizen's age. Had managed to stopper it even then. He looks down at his hands and feels her look at him, but she doesn't say a word. He's relieved.

Over dinner, grandfather tries to draw him out on Ozawa's election. He has no opinion. Haven't been reading the papers, have you, father says, with a sidelong glance that is meant to convey amusement. It's their joke, that Kunimitsu is one who hogs the morning news, closer to forty than Kuniharu.

Kunimitsu doesn't say a word for the remainder of the meal.

 

*

Mother follows him to his room when he's done with the trash. "Kunimitsu, what's wrong?" she says again, and it's the calm voice she puts on when she's worried. 

He looks down and wishes he could lie. Instead he starts to talk. Slowly, in pieces, she finds out that Echizen-kun, yes, that Echizen-kun with the American manners who visited that one time, is going to America. 

Is he scared the team won't win? He shakes his head, no. If they can't do it without one man, then they don't deserve to. He really thinks so. Did Echizen handle it poorly? No, he made the wrong choice at first, but even that was for good reasons, and he apologised.

Then, “Are you sad your friend is going?” she asks. “It's OK if you are. It's normal.”

Kunimitsu can't say a word. He never thought about it, but he supposes Echizen is his friend. Tennis as a rule doesn't make him feel close to people, merely understand them, but Echizen's different. In the last games of any match with Echizen, he's seared with the feeling that he knows Echizen because he knows himself. Playing him impersonally would be about as easy as giving up tennis.

But he doesn't know if Echizen thinks of him as _his_ friend. Momo is, Eiji is, but Kunimitsu? 

Mother smiles. She touches his hair. “Kunimitsu, did you think you were going to graduate junior high without saying goodbye to at least some people you really liked?” He doesn't say a word.

“Anyway, think about when you went to Germany. Everyone made a fuss as though you were going away forever, but if you did, who would pretend to fish for hours with grandfather and come back with yellowtail from the wet market? If Echizen-kun is your friend, he’ll be back somehow. I know it.”

Kunimitsu doesn't even groan or protest at the old joke. He feels too stupid and relieved and mindlessly happy. His heart is pounding as though he’s been in the wind, hurtling down the stairs from the roof two at a time; no, three. __ Suddenly the most important thing is knowing whether Echizen thought of him as a friend or anything at all in this, and though he minds too much not to be afraid, the thought on the tip of his tongue is like a ripeness, an opening, and he thinks he might already know.  _I didn’t want to disappoint you._

“I'm stupid,” he says to himself, and mother laughs and strokes his hair again as she gets up to go. “No, she says. “No, you just care.''

 

*

Echizen shows up at the airport half an hour before the others, as Kunimitsu asked. it’s eight in the morning and he should have complained, or overslept, but he’s there on time. His new visor is smaller than the cap and marks the angle of his gaze as his lifts his head to look up at Kunimitsu.

Kunimitsu is meeting him evenly. 

“Buchou?"

“Here,” he says. He passes the envelope into Echizen’s hands. Echizen takes it curiously, clearly itching to look, and Kunimitsu nods permission. “Go ahead.”

Echizen rips the seal without reserve, then stares. It’s a tennis club membership with Haruno, flexible, with six months that can be started and suspended anytime in the next three years. Kunimitsu had to look hard for something that worked, and when he tracked down the name of the university with the underused courts that came cheap and flexible as you please, he laughed from sheer pleasure. The universe was telling him a joke, but it was a kind one.

“I have one too,” Kunimitsu says. You won’t have to beg me to play next time, he doesn’t add. 

Echizen seems to get it. He’s looking at him, his eyes swimming. Kunimitsu pretends not to notice. 

“ _ Buchou _ ,” he says again. “I. I didn’t get you anything.” He seems to say it more for the lack of anything else to say. Kunimitsu makes a noise of dissent. They’re awkward for a while. Then bony arms are around him, the body pressing against his narrow but warm. Echizen’s nose grazes his armpit. 

Kunimitsu’s heart stumbles, is full. Even now, he can see clear over Echizen’s head. He makes to move down to look for Echizen’s face, but his chin gets in the way and Echizen lets go with a startled yip, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Kikumaru-senpai made it look so easy,” he grumbles. He doesn’t say anything, though, when Kunimitsu lifts his hand to his temple. There’s no sign of a bump, but Kunimitsu brushes his palm over the swathe of skin to be sure. His fingers graze Echizen’s hair. It’s cat-soft, exactly as it looks. He wants to touch the fine thrum of the mind as easily, feel what it’s thinking.

It takes him a second to let go. His face is hot by the end of it, and he wonders if it shows. Echizen’s face is flushed, too, but he doesn’t look away. His head tips up eagerly like the prow of a small but seaworthy ship. They stay that way for a moment.

Then Kunimitsu’s stomach growls.

Echizen grins. “Wanna get breakfast? I'm hungry too.” He rubs his belly, his small hand spanning his stomach exactly. Kunimitsu’s mouth goes dry with brute affection.

“You’re growing. You should eat as much as you want,” he says mock-sternly. 

“Yeah.” Echizen starts walking, and he falls into step. “I could eat a horse. I could eat the whole airport.”

Kunimitsu is grave. “I’ll take Haneda, then.” 

“Nah, buchou. You can have all of California. New York when I’m done with it. We’ll eat America,” Echizen says. 

His face is entirely straight and irrepressible. Kunimitsu looks at him once, twice. The laugh bubbles out of him, shakes loose and works him free, then Echizen’s laughing because he is, and the walk and the hour and the sound of the breath in their bodies passes between them like an understanding, union and communion.

**Author's Note:**

> From "Given":
> 
> _If you spring up,_  
>  _let it not be against me_
> 
>  _but like a weed or a_  
>  _fountain. I grant you_  
>  _the hard spine of your_  
>     
>  _childhood. I grant you_  
>  _the frowning arc of this morning._  
>  _If I could I would grant you_
> 
> _a bright throat and even_  
>  _brighter eyes, this whole hill_  
>  _of olive trees, its_  
> 
> _calmness of purpose._   
>  _Let me not forget_   
>  _ever what I owe you._


End file.
